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Priest
This article is a description of the character class '''Priest'. For a description of the role of priests within the lore of Warcraft, see Priest (lore). ''For related articles, see Category:Priests. Overview The priest is the best healing class in the game. They're indispensible in groups, and their value only increases at the higher levels. Their ability to heal, avoid aggro from monsters (mobs), dispel buffs on their enemies and debuffs on their allies, place powerful Buffs of their own on friendly units, and resurrect fallen comrades makes them arguably the most important member of any group, whether it's PvP or PvE. A quick summary of the main things a priest brings to a group: * Strong, efficient, fast heals. * Aggro control to make life easier on tanks. * Dispel both negative spells on allies and positive spells on enemies * Resurrect Shadow Priests are one of the most efficient solo classes in the game, right up there with hunters, especially after level 40. Via talents and a targeted Spirit and Intellect build, Shadow Priests can have high, sustainable DPS and incredibly high survivability with next to no downtime. A well-geared 40+ Priest can fight 8-10 single mobs before requiring rest... and kill them quite quickly. As a remarkable twist of fate Shadow Priests make for exceptionally good ranged DPS characters in endgame raids, but still not as good as mage or warlocks because of the lack of AoE and the fact that priests run out of mana too fast. Holy Priest, on the other hand, might not be just as good with PvE but they are unmatched in their healing abilities by any class and they have a unique method of damage+healing AoE Their primary stats are Intellect for a large mana pool and crits, Spirit for mana regeneration, and Stamina in order to have more hitpoints. =In-game= Priests are generally regarded as a tough class to play in PvP and solo PvE, but they are highly wanted in groups as the best healer in the game. However, they are more dependent on how their talent points are spent. A priest that spends most of their talent points in the shadow talent tree will be better off in PvP and solo PvE situations. The discipline and holy talent trees focus on making very strong healers that are wanted in groups, but they can be decent for solo PvE situations. Races The Priest can be played by: * Alliance ** Draenei ''(Draenei are not playable until the release of the 'The Burning Crusade' expansion) ** Dwarves ** Humans ** Night Elves * Horde ** Blood Elves (Blood Elves are not playable until the release of the 'Burning Crusade' expansion) ** Trolls ** Undead Note that Priests get a couple of extra spells according to their race, see the racial spells section for further details. Weapons and Armor Priests can only wear cloth armor. They begin with one-handed maces and wands. They can learn daggers and staves. For details on set items that are useful for priests, see Priest Sets. Spells *Healing **Single target heals **Group heals **Heals over time **Resurrection *Holy Magic **Buffs **Dispells and Cures **Direct Damage *Shadow Magic **Direct Damage **Damage over Time **Mana Drains **Aggro Control **Mind Control *Miscellaneous **Further Buffs & Aggro control **Limited crowd control See the Priest Spells page for further details. Talents Priest Talents are split into 3 categories: * Shadow Shadow talents are made to basically enhance a priests ability in DPS. Eventually it will give a priest an extra ability to heal while they use shadow spells, known as Vampiric Embrace. When fully specialized, it allows one to heal all party members a total of 30% of the shadow spell damage they deal to a target with Vampiric Embrace on it. Only works for the priest casting it, however. Silence and its prerequisite, Improved Psychic Scream, are utility talents placed in the middle of the Shadow tree that greatly enhance the priest spell repertory.The end of the list is Shadowform, which is a double-edged sword-- the priest gains 15% extra shadow damage and 15% physical damage reduction at the cost of being unable to heal. * Discipline Discipline is much like a Mage's Arcane talent category, and are mages' best friends. Discipline allows the priest to be stronger with buffs (such as Power Word: Shield and Fortitude and Inner Fire), more mana conserving, and still able to balance DPS and healing. At the end of this talent category is the spell Power Infusion. Power Infusion grants the target an extra 20% damage and healing buff. Unlike Arcane Power in the Mage's list, this technique allows the priest to give the buff to someone else, and it doesn't have the drawback of consuming extra mana like Arcane Power. Also, added with the healing buff, a priest could use this in an intense battle to have higher healing ability. Combining this with a powerful spirit buff, the priest can go on for many battles without running out of mana, especially in instances where the priest heals. This is mainly an end-game category, and quite powerful leveling up as a priest can get an extra 5% spell critical chance as well as a permanent spell damage mod to offensive spells. There are little to no priests that don't have a few points in Discipline. As of patch 1.10.2, Power Infusion does not stack with Arcane Power. * Holy Holy is basically what priests can use to increase their healing ability while enhancing their survivability to an extent. Threat can drop on a holy priest by a very favorable level, and many priests combine Holy with Discipline to enhance their PvE experience while attempting to conserve mana. The last ability is Lightwell, which allows the priest to give out a 5 charge heal that is not channeled. This ability heals anyone that clicks on it a certain amount of health and mana over time. Priests also have a "dying wish", which allows them to become a spirit healer, and heal party members without the usage of mana. This can easily save a group from being wiped out, and can keep them alive until the enemies are defeated or the priest is resurrected by a druid in battle. Holy priests are the best healers in the game, for they can heal even when a tank fails to keep mob threat. That is, if the holy priest decides to forgive them. There is some limited information on Priest Talents in Priest Spells. Talent builders can be found at Official Blizzard site, Panda Hideout, WoW Vault, ThottBot, Merciless Quests The two race-specific spells that priests can learn are obtained by quests. In addition, there are several more priest-specific quests for items. See the Priest Quests page for an outline of these quests. Priest Tactics :(See main page Priest Tactics for details) Priest tactics generally involve conserving mana and using heals, shields, and buffs strategically. Some priests will often try to avoid all melee contact. A Priest should engage in the occasional safe melee battle to build up the Defense attribute. Actually, the Power Word: Shield allows one to develop their Defense attribute End-Game Expectations Shadow Priests? You're probably not going to be melting any faces in the end-game, or using Shadowform. Most priests will be casting Fortitude and making sure that the MT doesn't drop dead. You are the superstar healer, the Rogue of the Healing classes. Shadow priests shouldn't fret however, as Warlocks LOVE Shadow Weaving, especially to burn timed bosses down like Vaelastrasz, Hakkar, and Ragnaros. Shadow Priests are useful by using their Vampiric Embrace as a powerful(over 100 hp per second) group wide heal over time in a tank, warlock or rogue/melee dps party. A single shadow priest can be a great addition to a raid as he brings more versatily and unique skills, however having more than one can hurt the raid as each shadow priest will require three Debuff slots(Shadow Word: Pain, Mind Flay and Vampiric Embrace). Another problem is that Shadow Weaving, by far the most important skill of a shadow priest in a raid, can easily be stacked by a single priest. Priests are more than likely going to be healers. If you do not wish to be a healer, but you still want your armor and weapons, join a raid guild. Priests and druids are the best healing classes for many reasons, and other players will expect them to heal as a large part of raiding is based on good healers. They are not asking priests to be holy, as there are many Discipline/Holy Priests and Shadow can be possible if the guild is not too closed minded. See Also See Starting a Priest for some advice when starting out. See the Priest Category for further information on the Priest class. Some good info at the official WoW forums Also good info at Priests Haven * Healing mana and threat FAQ ---- Category:Classes Category:Priests Category:Dwarves Category:Humans Category:Night Elves Category:Trolls Category:Forsaken Category:Horde classes Category:Alliance classes